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Micronations: The Amazing Story of Vatican City · Ridiculous History

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Speaker 1: Ridiculous Histories, a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to the
0:27
Speaker 1: show Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always so much for
0:30
Speaker 1: tuning in. Let's give it up for the super producer
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Speaker 1: of this episode and our show, mister Max Williams.
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Speaker 2: What to the what our personal.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, they call him il Papa. This is an interesting episode, GIRNL.
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Speaker 2: I'm ben.
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Speaker 1: We're talking about a something that has I think continually
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Speaker 1: fascinated all three of us, especially our research associate Jeff.
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Speaker 2: Micro nations right, not to be confused with Micronesia, which
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Speaker 2: is not a micronation.
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Speaker 1: No, that's just a nation of very tiny island tiny people.
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Speaker 2: You know.
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Speaker 1: It's interesting because it's not that far away from the
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Speaker 1: part of the world where real life hobbits once existed,
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Speaker 1: the Shire Homo Ah, yes, of course, guys.
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Speaker 3: I have a question. Let's try do this off memory.
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Speaker 3: What micronations have we done this for? So I'll start
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Speaker 3: off Andorra.
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Speaker 2: And doors where they make all the mink coats. No,
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Speaker 2: that's Angora, sorry, Andre is a kind of coat, that's right.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, and doors where you go to buy cigarettes and
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Speaker 3: booze tax free.
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Speaker 1: It's the duty free shop of the world. And uh,
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Speaker 1: it's San Marino. That was just seven hills.
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Speaker 2: Ye who live in the cave. That's yeah. I'm going
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Speaker 2: to be really great at this game. Ya, we're nailing it.
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Speaker 2: I think we got one more. We got Monaco.
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Speaker 1: Oh, I don't even Monaco. It's like a set dressing
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Speaker 1: for James bonsor.
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Speaker 2: It really is. It is indeed, And if I could
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Speaker 2: use this an opportunity for a personal plug. This podcast
2:03
Speaker 2: that I've been working on about the Rolling Stones Exile
2:05
Speaker 2: on Main Street record, which they made in the South
2:07
Speaker 2: of France, which is a very near Monico, has a
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Speaker 2: song on it called Tumbling Dice that is specifically a
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Speaker 2: reference to all of the debauched gambling hijinks that take
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Speaker 2: place in Monaco by the wealthy and powerful.
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Speaker 1: Now lest we sound like we're disparaging any of these
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Speaker 1: micro nations, we just want to shout out any tourism
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Speaker 1: board listening, we would love to go take us. We
2:28
Speaker 1: will go to Monaco. Max Love's Dice, Noel, I don't
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Speaker 1: know if you and I are big gamblers.
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Speaker 2: I got dice in my pocket right now. Oline. Check
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Speaker 2: this out? Whoa you think I'm played? My sides?
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Speaker 1: You got? I've got my dungeons and dragons.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, you can hear them. You can hear them. Yeah,
2:44
Speaker 2: tip you tap him. Let's see what we roll for now.
2:48
Speaker 2: I can't. I can't. Okay, we're not. We're just gonna say,
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Speaker 2: all twenties, is that a skilled check? Is what you
2:54
Speaker 2: call that? That's all I know. Obviously I am not
2:56
Speaker 2: a D and D guy that I have been very
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Speaker 2: much enjoying the new Legend of Zelda game, Tears of
3:02
Speaker 2: the Kingdom, which has some very Shire like locations in him.
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Speaker 1: I'm excited for Balder's Gate three, Balderdash three, Balder's Gate.
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Speaker 2: Ah, okay, it's the It's it.
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Speaker 1: Has nothing to do with today's episode.
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Speaker 2: But tell us what you think.
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Speaker 1: Vatican City, man, I've always wanted to go.
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Speaker 2: Well, Balder's Gate is believe centered around the infernal powers
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Speaker 2: of the damned.
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Speaker 1: It's based on dungeons and dragons, right, yeah, right, evil stuff.
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Speaker 1: I've never played it, our pal Matt said the controls
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Speaker 1: on the other ones were a little clunky, but you
3:36
Speaker 1: know me, man, I can only play like one game
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Speaker 1: at a time.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, it's like reading a book. Vatican City, though, is
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Speaker 2: in fact a bastion of defense against the infernal powers
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Speaker 2: of Balder's Gate and dungeons. What a segue, noll.
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Speaker 1: Yes, that's absolutely true. The Vatican has a distinct has
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Speaker 1: a distinction that not a lot of other religions get,
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Speaker 1: which is it is a country all its own. So
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Speaker 1: there's Italy, you know, Rome, Florence, et cetera, et cetera,
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Speaker 1: and then there's Vatican City, which is totally different. They
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Speaker 1: have their own passports, they get all the stuff you
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Speaker 1: would imagine country should have.
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Speaker 2: And like there are regular civilians that live there somehow, right.
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Speaker 1: Interesting you say that because obviously most of their population
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Speaker 1: is Catholic clergy, but there are non clergy members who
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Speaker 1: live there.
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Speaker 2: The Swiss guards, okay, only the Swiss guards, so no,
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Speaker 2: like janitorial staff like those those folks have to live
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Speaker 2: outside of the city, and then I guess they commute
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Speaker 2: in or do they have their own internal staff that
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Speaker 2: are actually holy the holy holy janitors. By the way,
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Speaker 2: I think we've mentioned this before on the show, but
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Speaker 2: the idea of the Holy See has always been very
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Speaker 2: fascinating and elusive to me because it's spelled see. I
4:52
Speaker 2: think we talked about dead in San Marino. That's right.
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Speaker 2: I like it they give me for being redundant, but
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Speaker 2: that is a theme. I've always found that term to
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Speaker 2: be very interesting, and I think we got to the
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Speaker 2: bottom of it last time. But just as a refresher,
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Speaker 2: what is the Holy See and how does it figure
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Speaker 2: into what Vatican City is?
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Speaker 1: The Holy See is put simply the jurisdiction of the Pope,
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Speaker 1: because the Pope is also the Bishop of Rome. And
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Speaker 1: the word the etymology is not as cool as I
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Speaker 1: had hoped, honestly, because c comes from the Latin set
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Speaker 1: as I want to say, sedes, which meant seat or
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Speaker 1: means seat, so basically it's they're saying a holy seat,
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Speaker 1: but it's fancy and confused.
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Speaker 2: Well, that makes perfect sense, right. So Vatican City, as
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Speaker 2: you mentioned, is in fact was set up as the
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Speaker 2: seat of the Catholic Church. And I guess the whole
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Speaker 2: is that the same as the Holy Roman Empire.
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Speaker 1: It is not the same thing.
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Speaker 2: It's not the same, Okay, forget I even said anything
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Speaker 2: seat of the Catholic Church, the Catholic faith. And it
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Speaker 2: was in fact initiated with the construction of what is
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Speaker 2: called a basilica, which I guess kind of a fancy mausoleum.
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Speaker 2: Or at the very least, it's like a fancy structure
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Speaker 2: meant to house the bones of Saint Peter.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, upon whom this rock was founded, right, the
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Speaker 1: rock of the church, the like founding the church. So
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Speaker 1: his grave, like you said, Noles in Rome, the basilicas
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Speaker 1: made in the fourth century CE or AD, whichever you prefer.
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Speaker 1: The area became a really popular tourist site, well pilgrimage site,
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Speaker 1: but you see what we're saying, And eventually it was
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Speaker 1: abandoned for a time because the papal court had what
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Speaker 1: we in production call.
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Speaker 2: A company move.
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Speaker 1: They relocated to France in thirteen oh nine.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, interesting choice. But then eventually in thirteen seventy seven
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Speaker 2: the church did return and several other very important historical
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Speaker 2: landmarks were constructed, including the Sistine Chapel we know about
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Speaker 2: that one, very fancy ceiling there we'll get into, and
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Speaker 2: the Apostolic Palace, as well as don't call it a comeback,
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Speaker 2: the new Saint Peter's Basilica. These were all constructed within
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Speaker 2: the bounds of Vatican City and the current form what
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Speaker 2: we know Vatican City as today. Being a sovereign nation,
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Speaker 2: a micronation actually was established in nineteen twenty nine, super
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Speaker 2: relatively recently, with the signing of something called the Latan Pacts.
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Speaker 1: Yes, hopefully everybody listening is going, ah, yes, the Pacts,
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Speaker 1: because I don't think either of us were aware of
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Speaker 1: that at first. This is coming to us from a
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Speaker 1: Great History dot Com article, which is basically there. It's
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Speaker 1: like their dictionary entry on Vatican City.
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Speaker 2: Pretty cool too. If you look at sort of this,
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Speaker 2: I guess the city square really more of a circle
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Speaker 2: kind of, you know, it looks like what do you
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Speaker 2: call this the parentheses, you know, where there's a giant
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Speaker 2: sort of obelisk in the middle, and I guess what
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Speaker 2: is the building that is of the feature that sort
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Speaker 2: of looks like the state capitol, the capital of the
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Speaker 2: United States with a dome.
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Speaker 1: Oh, that's that's the cost code.
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Speaker 2: Okay, cool. Yeah, they definitely styled on it. It's got
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Speaker 2: a really you know, it's sort of like when you're
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Speaker 2: in New York City and you see you know, a
8:14
Speaker 2: city bank or a freaking you know, a CVS and
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Speaker 2: it looks like some kind of like crazy old columns,
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Speaker 2: you know, for art. It's theayne reed. It is, in
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Speaker 2: fact not the cost code, is not. They don't have
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Speaker 2: room Saint Peter's Dome. I believe this has what it's
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Speaker 2: referred to as Saint Peter's Basilica. The feature that I'm
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Speaker 2: describing is in fact Saint Peter's Dome. But this is
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Speaker 2: where you know, the masses, these pilgrims that you're talking
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Speaker 2: about will come to you know, see uh an appearance
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Speaker 2: by the Pope where he'll come out on some kind
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Speaker 2: of little balcony and hold up his little two fingers
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Speaker 2: a little peace sign and make some sort of holy declaration,
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Speaker 2: and it's you know, it absolutely gets jammed. You know.
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Speaker 2: The image on History dot COM's article shows an absolutely
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Speaker 2: packed house.
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Speaker 1: And if you go to travel guides like row Wise
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Speaker 1: shout out to Alisa Bernard and Alessandro bisaically you can
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Speaker 1: you can see really cool stuff you can do in
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Speaker 1: the city.
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Speaker 2: I did not know this.
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Speaker 1: You can climb the dome of Saint Peter's Basilica.
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Speaker 2: Oh awesome. If I wasn't afraid of heights, I would
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Speaker 2: do that.
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Speaker 1: Well, what if we take a hot air balloon and
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Speaker 1: you a rope ladder?
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Speaker 2: Know you in for this? Absolutely great?
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Speaker 3: No, you're supposed to be You're supposed to be on
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Speaker 3: my side when it comes to heights stuff.
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Speaker 2: No, No, I'm okay. I'm relatively okay with Hestevan. You know,
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Speaker 2: I love a heist, so I'll be the bag man
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Speaker 2: and you can shame me me up well on the face.
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Speaker 2: So I have to be somewhere else. Anyways. How's your Italian? Oh? Perfect?
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Speaker 2: Oh great? Cool.
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Speaker 1: I'm persuaded by the way you answered in English, so
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Speaker 1: from the don't feel bad by it.
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Speaker 2: It's terrible.
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Speaker 1: I'm actually, as you guys know, I'm spending some time
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Speaker 1: in Italy pretty soon.
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Speaker 2: I didn't know that.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm not going to be at the Yeah, I
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Speaker 1: didn't know that either. I'm not going to be at
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Speaker 1: Vatican City.
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Speaker 2: Okay, no, we can, we can. We can chat about
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Speaker 2: this offline. The founding of Rome round eight hundred BCE
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Speaker 2: through the very end of what is known as the
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Speaker 2: Roman Republic forty four BCE, the name of the area
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Speaker 2: that is now referred to as Vatican City was Ager
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Speaker 2: or Ager Vaticanas, which is located on a hill on
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Speaker 2: the west bank of the Tiber River. Yeah.
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Speaker 1: And if you go to Vatican City now, of course,
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Speaker 1: for Catholics and non Catholics alike, this is one of
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Speaker 1: the world's most popular, most prestigious tourist destinations. Just it's
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Speaker 1: simply the seat of so much history. It might surprise
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Speaker 1: some of us to learn that this wasn't always the case.
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Speaker 1: It was kind of a dull neighborhood for a while
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Speaker 1: because it was close to another city, an Etruscan city
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Speaker 1: named They, and it also had some geographical problems. The
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Speaker 1: thing about rivers like the Tiber is they flood.
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Speaker 2: Right, you'd want to get flood insurance, or if that
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Speaker 2: was a thing back then, someone would be trying to
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Speaker 2: sell it to you. The Tiber River, as you said,
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Speaker 2: the banks would overflow and those waters would flood the city.
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Speaker 2: But after first century AD, Vaticanus became the term to
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Speaker 2: describe this area. It referred to the area that today
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Speaker 2: is the site of Saint Peter's Square. We described with
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Speaker 2: all the you know, lookie Louse and Vatican Hill, and
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Speaker 2: also an area known as a Via della consilazione. I
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Speaker 2: hope I did that relative justice.
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Speaker 1: Oh we are not obviously native Italian speakers, folks, Thank you,
11:43
Speaker 1: We're doing our best.
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Speaker 2: We mean no offense. Quock question, do you have to
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Speaker 2: show your Catholic credentials? Your bona fides no to be allowed,
11:50
Speaker 2: not like Mecca. Okay, yeah, well that's the thing in
11:52
Speaker 2: Mecca there are.
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Speaker 1: You cannot enter. You're not supposed to enter Mecca if
11:58
Speaker 1: you are not of the Muslim faith.
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Speaker 2: Okay, So they relatively speaking, welcome secular tourism.
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Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, yeah, of course. I mean think about all
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Speaker 1: the reporters who come there from around the world all
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Speaker 1: the time.
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Speaker 2: Very right point. But i'd imagine, you know, given it
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Speaker 2: being the seat of the Catholic Church and so many
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Speaker 2: Catholic officials of the highest order, security is probably pretty tight.
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Speaker 2: So tight.
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Speaker 1: Yes, this is a well the best way to put it,
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Speaker 1: and this is kind of an ugly thing, but we
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Speaker 1: have to admit it is that there are a lot
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Speaker 1: of people who, for one reason or another, will attempt
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Speaker 1: acts of violence against it. You know, we can't forget
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Speaker 1: that the Catholic Church, however imperfect, it's been as a
12:45
Speaker 1: political entity as a lot of ongoing problems. It also
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Speaker 1: people of the Catholic faith have been targeted before in
12:53
Speaker 1: the past, you know, so because the pope is an
12:56
Speaker 1: historic world leader, there are assassination So you're making a
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Speaker 1: great point about security.
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Speaker 2: Again, this wasn't always the way.
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Speaker 1: If it wasn't for this historical figure, Agrippina the Elder,
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Speaker 1: then it may well have just stayed a marsh.
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Speaker 2: Yeah it's sank into the swamp. Yeah yeah, yeah, great
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Speaker 2: big tracks of land. I'm sorry, I'm being a Monty
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Speaker 2: Python Nord. That's true. Agrippina the Elder, which is a
13:27
Speaker 2: baller name, had this kind of you know, swampy marshland
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Speaker 2: drained and had it landscaped beautifully, you know, with gardens.
13:37
Speaker 2: And then her son a fellow. You might have heard
13:39
Speaker 2: of a little guy by the name of Caligula. Oh yeah, yeah, real, real,
13:46
Speaker 2: stand up, fella. Watch the movie. It's basically pornography. It was,
13:51
Speaker 2: I believe, if I'm not mistaken, produced by the publisher
13:55
Speaker 2: of Penthouse magazine or one of the highly X rated
13:59
Speaker 2: you know, sub playboy Nudi mags of the time. I
14:04
Speaker 2: forget the guy's name, but there are serious acts portrayed
14:08
Speaker 2: in this film. And also portrayed in the film is
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Speaker 2: and Ber Caligula, of course, played by Malcolm McDowell. It's
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Speaker 2: a very interesting film. It is an artifact of the time.
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Speaker 2: There's really nothing else quite like it. It's got some
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Speaker 2: really elaborate death scenes involving like weird contraptions that there's
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Speaker 2: a part where people are buried up to their necks
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Speaker 2: in the ground and then this like weird lawnmower buzzsaw
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Speaker 2: thing just chops all their heads off.
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Speaker 1: There are multiple versions of that film because it was
14:33
Speaker 1: so controversial. Yeah, Bob Gucciote, right, I.
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Speaker 2: Think that's right. But Caligula wanted to make this a
14:41
Speaker 2: site for kind of chariot competitions in the garden, so
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Speaker 2: he actually built what's called a circus, like Circus Maximus,
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Speaker 2: right like that, which is really more just like a
14:52
Speaker 2: hippodrome kind of situation.
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Speaker 1: It's like a public venue for performance.
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Speaker 2: Right.
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Speaker 1: And so this work, this we results in the obelisk
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Speaker 1: that we mentioned earlier, The obelisk in Saint Peter's Square
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Speaker 1: was taken by Caligula from Egypt just to flex to
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Speaker 1: decorate the circus, and eventually Nero completes this huge public work.
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Speaker 2: Another great fellow, Oh yeah, class act, that great violinist too.
15:17
Speaker 2: It turns out that's just the wind motivated the longest
15:21
Speaker 2: stuff was burning. Yeah.
15:23
Speaker 1: I still think we should do an episode on the
15:27
Speaker 1: crazy eccentricities of Roman emperors. And how much of that
15:32
Speaker 1: is fact and how much is fiction.
15:33
Speaker 2: We did one of ways back remember the little Nippers.
15:36
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, those kids swim and and.
15:41
Speaker 2: Was that anyway we'll get we'll get back to it.
15:44
Speaker 1: But the point is this has a lot of history
15:48
Speaker 1: even in its formation. That obelisk is from Egypt. Nero,
15:53
Speaker 1: again being a super class act, doesn't have the idea.
15:56
Speaker 1: Originally he completes the work and people start calling at
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Speaker 1: the circus of Nero. This becomes a martyrdom site for
16:04
Speaker 1: a lot of Christians, including Saint Peter, and it's right,
16:08
Speaker 1: and they're very very upfront about the history in that
16:12
Speaker 1: regard to their credit. Like you can get we're getting
16:16
Speaker 1: some of this information from the tourism site for the Vatican.
16:19
Speaker 2: Very similar to what you'll see if you go to
16:21
Speaker 2: Berlin or other like German kind of museum cities. You know,
16:26
Speaker 2: there are lots of references to the Holocaust, and they're
16:29
Speaker 2: very open about you know, how many very very bad
16:33
Speaker 2: people donated some very very important works of art, and
16:36
Speaker 2: wings of museums and areas of cities were named after
16:40
Speaker 2: you know, bona fide anti semis, you know, your high
16:44
Speaker 2: ups in the Nazi party so I think it's always
16:46
Speaker 2: interesting when a problematic culture does their very best to
16:50
Speaker 2: own up to their problematic past. Absolutely, there's a why
16:53
Speaker 2: this like clean, but it's it's a start. Can I
16:55
Speaker 2: tell you something crazy before we move on? I had
16:58
Speaker 2: a interesting conversation. I saw an interesting conversation with some
17:03
Speaker 2: folks on Twitter or x whatever.
17:08
Speaker 1: Right, folks wore an audio podcasts should have seen the
17:12
Speaker 1: headshakes we all made. But anyway, on that platform, someone
17:17
Speaker 1: showed me that in reaction to the Oppenheimer film in Japan,
17:22
Speaker 1: several Japanese meme posters will try to make yeah offensive
17:26
Speaker 1: joke nine to eleven, and they didn't realize Americans will go,
17:30
Speaker 1: well is it?
17:31
Speaker 2: Is it a funny joke? That's the memes that Americans
17:33
Speaker 2: love you, and we already probably well ahead of them
17:37
Speaker 2: in that particular game. You know it's been done. But
17:40
Speaker 2: I mentioned Nero fiddling while Rome was burning, or at
17:43
Speaker 2: least I alluded to that. That is an image that
17:46
Speaker 2: is often conjured, you know, and referring to this individual
17:49
Speaker 2: because it is said, or at least it is believed
17:52
Speaker 2: by many that he himself started a massive fire in
17:55
Speaker 2: sixty four CE that destroyed more than two thirds of
17:59
Speaker 2: the city and then blamed it on the Christians.
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Speaker 1: And his secret his conspiracy, according again to the story,
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Speaker 1: is that he did this so he could first get
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Speaker 1: rid of these pesky political activists, which is what Christians
18:13
Speaker 1: were becoming in his mind, these dissidents, and then secondly,
18:17
Speaker 1: so he could rebuild the city in his image. He
18:21
Speaker 1: wanted to construct something called the domus Aria or Golden House,
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Speaker 1: and like you say, persecutes Christians as scapegoats. Again, according
18:31
Speaker 1: to the legend, he has said to have ordered the
18:34
Speaker 1: murder of Saint Peter. And it's true that after Rome
18:38
Speaker 1: was leveled in this fire eighty sixty four, however it started,
18:42
Speaker 1: Nero executed Saint Peter, along with many other members of
18:47
Speaker 1: the Christian faith.
18:48
Speaker 2: But as we know, you can't really kill an idea,
18:50
Speaker 2: and oftentimes when you kill someone that represents the heart
18:54
Speaker 2: of an idea, you just serve to further bolster that idea.
18:58
Speaker 2: It's sort of like the streisand effect we talk about
19:00
Speaker 2: often the idea of the moment you start to try
19:02
Speaker 2: to wipe something off the Internet that's in the Internet
19:05
Speaker 2: really starts to dig in and like push that stuff
19:07
Speaker 2: out even more.
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Speaker 1: One hundred percent. Yeah, they rise again stronger. So something
19:14
Speaker 1: interesting happens on the way to the present day.
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Speaker 2: Emperor.
19:18
Speaker 1: Constantine the first converts to Christianity, and this is evidenced
19:24
Speaker 1: by the Edict of Milan in three thirteen AD or
19:28
Speaker 1: again CE and so he starts he's the one who
19:33
Speaker 1: makes the Basilica. Like, after all these Christians get executed,
19:36
Speaker 1: including Saint Peter, there's an acropolis at the base of
19:40
Speaker 1: Vatican Hill, and Constantine is the one who orders the
19:43
Speaker 1: construction of the basilica over the tomb in three twenty
19:48
Speaker 1: four very old architecture.
19:50
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's true, and it's always so interesting. Man. Constantine
19:53
Speaker 2: is such an important figure in all of this because,
19:56
Speaker 2: I mean again, Romans were virilin the anti christian as
20:01
Speaker 2: we've discussed, and then all of a sudden there's a
20:03
Speaker 2: sea change, not a holy sea change, it's a regular
20:06
Speaker 2: sea change spelled I believe s A in this case.
20:09
Speaker 2: But that's all thanks to Constantine. And then all of
20:11
Speaker 2: a sudden he's like flipping everybody. We're left and right,
20:14
Speaker 2: you know, by edict to Christianity. And that is what
20:17
Speaker 2: leads more or less to this area becoming this sort
20:21
Speaker 2: of sanctified seat of the Catholic Faith, all based around
20:27
Speaker 2: the supposed site of Saint Peter's burial.
20:30
Speaker 1: Ding Ding Ding supposed believe that's right site. Yeah. The palace, conversely,
20:37
Speaker 1: is constructed in the fifth century during the papacy of
20:40
Speaker 1: Pope Samachus.
20:43
Speaker 2: Sorry picture like him walking around slapping people in the face.
20:48
Speaker 1: I know his name, yeahs Smacus was here.
20:53
Speaker 2: In between three eighteen and three twenty two, the very
20:56
Speaker 2: first church, Saint Old Peters Basilica, started in Earnest Again.
21:02
Speaker 2: This became a site for Christian pilgrims, then became sort
21:08
Speaker 2: of a housing situation for high level clergymen, and also
21:13
Speaker 2: eventually they built a marketplace that was kind of a
21:18
Speaker 2: really bustling side of trade, you know, for the region
21:22
Speaker 2: known as the District of Borgo. Yeah.
21:26
Speaker 1: And you know, when you get a lot of tourists,
21:29
Speaker 1: sometimes you get crime. So pirates attacked damage Saint Peter's
21:35
Speaker 1: in eight forty six. This caused Pope Leo the fourth
21:39
Speaker 1: to say, build a wall. We got to build a
21:42
Speaker 1: wall to keep the pirates out. We want to protect
21:46
Speaker 1: our holy structures. And this was you know, at the time,
21:51
Speaker 1: this was a pretty good and smart defensive.
21:53
Speaker 2: Measure indeed, And I just want to make a quick,
21:56
Speaker 2: a little behind the curtain thing. I sometimes listen to
21:59
Speaker 2: research that we've on or that that our research associates
22:02
Speaker 2: extraordinaries have done for these shows on a voice to
22:05
Speaker 2: speech yeah, a way that I can kind of do
22:07
Speaker 2: it in the card speech IFI. And we did one
22:09
Speaker 2: recently on I forget exactly which episode it was, but
22:14
Speaker 2: there was some reference to pornography in it and Triple X.
22:19
Speaker 2: The speech to voice robot reads that as thirty every time,
22:25
Speaker 2: because that's the Roman numeral triple another sex phone? Which
22:29
Speaker 2: one is that one? That's the hip hop episode? That's right, Yeah,
22:32
Speaker 2: Triple X. The idea of of you know, censorship and
22:35
Speaker 2: all that and the X rating and then triple X
22:37
Speaker 2: ray and the fact that it wasn't actually really a thing.
22:39
Speaker 1: No pornography studios created that to make it look like
22:44
Speaker 1: they were.
22:45
Speaker 2: Even so hardcore. Yeah, but sorry, I just just had
22:48
Speaker 2: to do a little aside on Roman rated thirty rated
22:52
Speaker 2: thirty exactly. All right.
22:54
Speaker 1: Well, let's like, you know again, say yelling that you
22:57
Speaker 1: want to build a wall kind of has a bad
23:00
Speaker 1: connotation for a lot of us here in twenty twenty three,
23:03
Speaker 1: but back then, Pope Leo, he had his head in
23:07
Speaker 1: the right place. They did build the wall thirty nine
23:10
Speaker 1: feet tall, so they're not playing around. It's not like
23:13
Speaker 1: a decorative picket fence. And when this enclosed the whole area.
23:17
Speaker 1: When the wall was complete, they called it Leo nine city.
23:20
Speaker 1: Get it, Pope Leo is a cavalcade of humble dudes
23:25
Speaker 1: things after themselves.
23:26
Speaker 2: No, it's true, and that was wrapped up in around
23:28
Speaker 2: eighteen fifty two. And yeah, it really was designed to,
23:32
Speaker 2: you know, keep the folks inside in and the folks
23:35
Speaker 2: outside out. Yeah, right, exactly like a wall is meant
23:39
Speaker 2: to do. I'm sorry, I'm stating the obvious here.
23:40
Speaker 1: Right, there is a small shrine that, according to according
23:47
Speaker 1: to the believers, holds the bones of the real Saint Peter,
23:51
Speaker 1: and they top it with a canopy that has four
23:55
Speaker 1: twisted columns from the second century. I am adin, We're
24:01
Speaker 1: not architecture experts, so I imagine it's like taking a
24:04
Speaker 1: column and just twisting your hands in opposite direction.
24:07
Speaker 2: I think that's right in that description. There's not an image,
24:09
Speaker 2: but that description. I haven't been to Vatican City, so I, Kevin,
24:11
Speaker 2: see a lot of this stuff. Personally. But that description
24:14
Speaker 2: comes from an article by A. Lisa Bernard from romewise
24:18
Speaker 2: dot com Your Guide to Rome. Yeah, if you want.
24:22
Speaker 1: To there, we go Rome around the world, and Rome
24:26
Speaker 1: and the Vatican did indeed spread around the world. Okay,
24:29
Speaker 1: some other things you need to know. People started donating
24:33
Speaker 1: lands to the Catholic Church. It eventually becomes one of
24:36
Speaker 1: the largest landholders in.
24:38
Speaker 2: All of Europe.
24:40
Speaker 1: And with that power, you know, like like Little Kim said, money,
24:45
Speaker 1: power respect. You get the money, get the power, and
24:48
Speaker 1: then people respect you. I'm sure she's referencing the growth
24:51
Speaker 1: of Vatican City in those lyrics. Big Day, December twenty fifth,
24:56
Speaker 1: eight hundred CE. A guy that may also be familiar
24:59
Speaker 1: to you. Charlemagne, not our co worker.
25:02
Speaker 2: The God, not the God. This is just regular art.
25:06
Speaker 2: He probably thought of himself as a bit of a
25:07
Speaker 2: gods should imagine.
25:09
Speaker 1: Right, especially on this day when he was officially crowned
25:13
Speaker 1: Holy Roman Emperor by Pope Leo the Third.
25:17
Speaker 2: Uh.
25:18
Speaker 1: This took place on this big, big circular stone, and
25:22
Speaker 1: you can see the stone right at the entrance of
25:25
Speaker 1: Saint Peter's Basilica. When you visit today, you are walking
25:29
Speaker 1: through history. When you were in this town.
25:31
Speaker 2: Incredible. That's the beautiful thing about so many parts of
25:34
Speaker 2: Europe is like it's a park, but there are like
25:37
Speaker 2: sculptures and topieris and things that have been maintained for
25:41
Speaker 2: hundreds of years.
25:41
Speaker 1: You're in a bar and you look around and you go, hey,
25:44
Speaker 1: how old is this bar? And they're like, well, that's
25:48
Speaker 1: sixteen fifteen hundred.
25:49
Speaker 2: Is that the shroud of turn over? There? Yes, as
25:52
Speaker 2: a bar, wipe down cloth.
25:54
Speaker 1: Yeah, don't bring it up there, don't bring it up.
25:56
Speaker 1: But yeah, what's that old saying. I'm sure a lot
25:58
Speaker 1: of our ridiculous historyans are thinking this already. In Europe,
26:05
Speaker 1: two hundred miles is a long way. In the United States,
26:09
Speaker 1: two hundred years is a long time.
26:11
Speaker 2: That's very true. So, as you said, Charlemagne is crowned
26:15
Speaker 2: on the eve of December twenty fifth, eight hundred, thee
26:18
Speaker 2: crowned Holy Roman Emperor by Pope Leo the Third, and
26:22
Speaker 2: eventually the popes start to have a very similar type
26:30
Speaker 2: and amount of power as an emperor.
26:32
Speaker 1: My yeah, yeah, they start governing neighboring regions, they become
26:38
Speaker 1: the state authority, and up until about the mid eighteen
26:43
Speaker 1: hundreds they ruled a large piece of the Italian peninsula,
26:47
Speaker 1: and these came to be these areas came to be
26:49
Speaker 1: collectively referred to as the papal states. These popes would
26:54
Speaker 1: live at the Litterian Palace, and then later they would
26:57
Speaker 1: live at the Querarinal Palace coronel.
27:01
Speaker 2: You know, like you.
27:03
Speaker 1: Or if you're British, your hinal right right, aluminium and
27:06
Speaker 1: so on.
27:07
Speaker 2: And that's between thirteen oh nine and thirteen seventy seven,
27:10
Speaker 2: when the papal residence was actually in France, as we
27:15
Speaker 2: referred to earlier in Avignon.
27:17
Speaker 1: Avignon, Yes, yes, sir, and their dalliance their company moved
27:22
Speaker 1: to France. Didn't last too long. Actually, in the great
27:26
Speaker 1: scheme of things, the church returned to Italy in thirteen
27:30
Speaker 1: seventy seven, and this is where they begin building things
27:34
Speaker 1: like the Cistine Chapel, the new Saint Peter's Basilica.
27:39
Speaker 2: And the old Apostolic Palace was actually leveled, and then
27:45
Speaker 2: they built a new one for the pope to live,
27:48
Speaker 2: and that's Pope Nicholas the Fifth. This was kind of
27:52
Speaker 2: the beginning of the new and improved Vatican City that
27:56
Speaker 2: is largely what we know today.
27:59
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, and it happens because our pal Pope Nicholas
28:02
Speaker 1: the fifth decides to live permanently within the bounds of
28:06
Speaker 1: the city. And to the fast forward toward the end
28:10
Speaker 1: of the fourteen hundreds, Pope Julius the second is saying,
28:15
Speaker 1: it's time to think of the future. It's time to
28:18
Speaker 1: preserve our legacy. The Basilica is twelve hundred years old.
28:22
Speaker 1: Now we should probably look into some maintenance. And sadly
28:29
Speaker 1: this idea came a little too late. Imagine a huge
28:32
Speaker 1: building like this, it's leading to one side. It's not
28:36
Speaker 1: big enough to hold the huge tomb that Pope Julius
28:40
Speaker 1: the Second had asked Michelangelo to design for him.
28:44
Speaker 2: That's right, always stay humble. And this was a big
28:48
Speaker 2: deal because all of this stuff, you know, the whole
28:52
Speaker 2: origin of this area was connected directly to Saint Peter's martyrdom,
28:58
Speaker 2: you know, under the Romans, and so it was kind
29:01
Speaker 2: of very unpopular, at the very least divisive to consider
29:06
Speaker 2: overhauling it, you know, or or almost like bordering on
29:09
Speaker 2: sacrilege to the faithful.
29:12
Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely, but they had to deal with reality. It
29:18
Speaker 1: would be virtually impossible to repair this structure. So they said,
29:22
Speaker 1: we're going to preserve Saint Peter's tomb, and we're going
29:26
Speaker 1: to make something even bigger, bolder, better and more holy
29:30
Speaker 1: around it. Pope Julius passes away in fifteen thirteen, and
29:36
Speaker 1: subsequent popes after him consult so many architects to try
29:40
Speaker 1: to figure out what this new basilica will look like.
29:43
Speaker 1: How will it not be sacrilegious, How will it be
29:46
Speaker 1: more of the stuff you liked already but even better,
29:50
Speaker 1: and how will it be an appropriately dignified structure for
29:55
Speaker 1: one of the most important figures in all of Catholic history.
30:00
Speaker 2: So I know we're jumping around in history a little bit,
30:02
Speaker 2: as we are wont to do, but let's jump if
30:04
Speaker 2: we may to May the sixth of fifteen twenty seven,
30:07
Speaker 2: when troops, under acting under orders from Charles the Fifth,
30:11
Speaker 2: the Holy Roman emperor at the time, rose up because
30:15
Speaker 2: they hadn't been getting paid. Good reason to rise it is, Yeah,
30:19
Speaker 2: for sure, labor rights very important concept. So a lot
30:23
Speaker 2: of these foreign soldiers they didn't just attack Rome, or
30:29
Speaker 2: as the popular militaristic term would be of the time,
30:32
Speaker 2: sack Rome, but in fact they pretty much annihilated it.
30:36
Speaker 2: They did a nero. Yeah, they narrowed the heck out
30:39
Speaker 2: of it, and it was absolutely brutal rape and pillage
30:43
Speaker 2: style kind of behavior. And one hundred and eighty nine
30:47
Speaker 2: Swiss guards in the palace. Total of that number, one
30:51
Speaker 2: hundred and forty seven actually died right there in front
30:55
Speaker 2: of Saint Peter's Basilica. These Swiss guards, by the way,
30:58
Speaker 2: as you mentioned at the top of the show, also
31:00
Speaker 2: housed in this part. Why are they called Swiss Guards?
31:04
Speaker 1: I'm so glad you asked. Okay, So they are kind
31:07
Speaker 1: of a relatively new force at this time, because we
31:11
Speaker 1: say fifteen twenty seven, so they well, they've been around
31:14
Speaker 1: for a few decades. They start in the fourteen hundreds
31:18
Speaker 1: and late fourteen hundreds. Because Pope Sixtus the Fourth, which
31:22
Speaker 1: is confusing, wow, for the sixth threat, he can't be
31:26
Speaker 1: Pope sixty four. Pope Sixtus the fourth made an alliance
31:32
Speaker 1: with what was called the Swiss Confederacy. And he did
31:36
Speaker 1: this because he thought, we need you know, we're a
31:39
Speaker 1: state force. Now we need an army because the true
31:43
Speaker 1: definition of any state is a monopoly on violence. And
31:47
Speaker 1: they so he makes a pact and says, we're going
31:51
Speaker 1: to agree with you. The Swiss Confederacy, a bunch of
31:55
Speaker 1: really small independent states initially within the Holy Roman Empire.
32:00
Speaker 1: We're gonna get your soldiers that are gonna work for us.
32:03
Speaker 1: They don't have to become members of the clergy or
32:07
Speaker 1: anything like that. So the Swiss Guard, which is around
32:09
Speaker 1: today has its own storied history that would be a
32:12
Speaker 1: lot of fun to talk about. They went through the fire,
32:16
Speaker 1: Like you said, almost one hundred and fifty died. The
32:19
Speaker 1: Pope Clement the seventh in this attack, he has to
32:24
Speaker 1: go to ground.
32:24
Speaker 2: He's on the run, that's right, and he, along with
32:27
Speaker 2: I think only around forty two of these Swiss Guard
32:30
Speaker 2: members escape through a network of passageways on top of
32:35
Speaker 2: that Leonine Wall that we mentioned, which is the walls
32:38
Speaker 2: surrounding Vatican City, and that led to a fortress called
32:43
Speaker 2: Castel San Angelo, and eventually Pope Clement the what is
32:48
Speaker 2: it seventh, right, actually had to pay a quite sizeable
32:53
Speaker 2: ransom and give up some of those papal states or
32:57
Speaker 2: control of them to the Holy Roman Empire. It really
33:00
Speaker 2: does get a little convoluted because I even was confused
33:03
Speaker 2: with that right way is Holy Roman Empire are the
33:05
Speaker 2: same as like the Seat of the Catholic Church. And
33:08
Speaker 2: it's not because there was a time where they were
33:10
Speaker 2: like at odds with each other, Oh for sure. I
33:12
Speaker 2: mean because the power that Vatican City held largely was
33:16
Speaker 2: due to the fact that they were gifted all of
33:19
Speaker 2: this land and all of this property, and they were
33:23
Speaker 2: just early to the game. So they eventually amassed enough
33:26
Speaker 2: influence and you know cachet I guess, you know, actual
33:30
Speaker 2: physical goods and lands that they were a rival to
33:35
Speaker 2: the emperor, and that probably didn't go over particularly well.
33:39
Speaker 1: Yeah, and even the term Holy Roman Empire wasn't used
33:43
Speaker 1: until the thirteenth century, I want to say. And the
33:47
Speaker 1: idea was supposed to be that they got their authority
33:51
Speaker 1: from God, right, so the pope would have to co
33:54
Speaker 1: sign you as a monarch, which led to some very
33:57
Speaker 1: sticky situations. Anyway, as you said, Pope Clement the seventh,
34:03
Speaker 1: in the parlance of our times, he got got.
34:06
Speaker 2: He sure did so. In eighteen seventy the various states
34:17
Speaker 2: that were contained within the Peninsula of Italy, the Italian
34:21
Speaker 2: Peninsula became kind of unified, I guess under King Victor
34:27
Speaker 2: Emmanuel the Second. This was also a time where the
34:32
Speaker 2: pope's supremacy was beginning to wane a little bit because
34:36
Speaker 2: he'd already the position rather right, had to give up
34:40
Speaker 2: a lot of that control over these papal states and
34:43
Speaker 2: of the influence they had. So it was a little
34:46
Speaker 2: bit questionable between eighteen sixty one and nineteen twenty nine
34:52
Speaker 2: as to what the pope even represented, you know, and
34:55
Speaker 2: what kind of power that position would wield. Right.
34:59
Speaker 1: Yeah, And Italy, you're probably wondering the whole time what
35:03
Speaker 1: was Italy doing? Uh, they were minding their own business.
35:08
Speaker 1: Italy was not unified. There were a bunch of semi
35:13
Speaker 1: autonomous different communities and states, and Italy would not interfere
35:20
Speaker 1: with the Holy See within the Vatican, but outside of
35:24
Speaker 1: the Vatican they would confiscate stuff pretty much whenever they can,
35:29
Speaker 1: including the Coronal Palace, which was once again formerly the
35:34
Speaker 1: pope's official homes.
35:36
Speaker 2: Right. And at that point the popes start to, you know,
35:41
Speaker 2: kind of hole up within the walls of Vatican City
35:44
Speaker 2: largely I would argue for their own protection. Yeah, and
35:48
Speaker 2: and a lot of the I guess, let's call them
35:53
Speaker 2: priorities of the popes were then recognized by something called
35:59
Speaker 2: the Law of Guarantees, which included things like the right
36:03
Speaker 2: to send and receive ambassadors and to maintain these ambassadorships.
36:08
Speaker 2: But also the popes didn't recognize the supremacy of the
36:13
Speaker 2: kings of Italy and their right to rule Rome. They
36:19
Speaker 2: refused to get out of their Heidi hole behind those
36:22
Speaker 2: walls in Vatican City. So it really did become kind
36:26
Speaker 2: of like a bunker, like a compound where they were
36:29
Speaker 2: able to kind of seek refuge, you know, and be
36:34
Speaker 2: quite isolated.
36:35
Speaker 1: One hundred percent right again for their own safety, but
36:38
Speaker 1: they became prisoners essentially out of necessity. Let's fast forward, max,
36:44
Speaker 1: if we get the yeah, there we go, so perfect,
36:48
Speaker 1: We're in nineteen twenty six. This is where Vatican City
36:51
Speaker 1: begins to transform into an actual facts nation state as
36:54
Speaker 1: our power, Volgelbaum would say. The negotiations for the settlement
36:59
Speaker 1: of what became new as the Roman Question started in
37:03
Speaker 1: nineteen twenty six. The government of Italy and the Holy
37:06
Speaker 1: See again the jurisdiction of the Pope, they create these
37:09
Speaker 1: things we mentioned earlier. The latter are in pacts. This
37:13
Speaker 1: agreement gets signed off by a one of the only
37:16
Speaker 1: bad bends in history, Benito Mussolini, prime minister at the time,
37:21
Speaker 1: on behalf of King Victor Emanuel the third of Italy,
37:25
Speaker 1: and then for the Vatican side, the packs are signed
37:29
Speaker 1: by Cardinals Secretary of State Pietro Gaspari for Pope Pious
37:34
Speaker 1: the Eleventh. This all goes down on February eleventh of
37:38
Speaker 1: nineteen twenty nine, so it took three years for them
37:41
Speaker 1: to negotiate this stuff, and it's a big win for
37:46
Speaker 1: Vatican City.
37:47
Speaker 2: It's officially ratified on June seventh of nineteen twenty nine. Again,
37:51
Speaker 2: much more recent history than we would typically think. You know,
37:55
Speaker 2: you think of something like Vatican City, obviously the history
37:57
Speaker 2: of it as a place much longer. But I think
38:00
Speaker 2: for me, at least, I've always thought of it as
38:02
Speaker 2: its own kind of you know, sovereign nation.
38:05
Speaker 1: Right right, It seems strange how close the history is here.
38:11
Speaker 1: I think a lot of us in the West, especially
38:13
Speaker 1: if we are not of the Catholic faith, we assume
38:16
Speaker 1: that since ancient times, Vatican City has been a distinct
38:22
Speaker 1: nation stake.
38:23
Speaker 2: Yeah, and you know, fascists don't typically have a reputation for, like,
38:27
Speaker 2: you know, being particularly agreeable or giving stuff up. But
38:31
Speaker 2: the fascist Italian government does in fact agree to the
38:35
Speaker 2: latter entreaty to the terms the latter entreaty, and the
38:38
Speaker 2: Pope then is able to exercise sovereignty. After he is
38:42
Speaker 2: elected as the head of the Roman Catholic Church, he
38:46
Speaker 2: becomes an absolute monarch essentially, or let's call it. I
38:50
Speaker 2: guess you know. Britannica dot com uses the term executive
38:54
Speaker 2: in terms of his head of this mini government which
38:57
Speaker 2: has an executive, legislative and judicial branch, the Pope being
39:02
Speaker 2: the head of all of those, right, big man on campus.
39:05
Speaker 1: So one of my questions is, and I say this
39:08
Speaker 1: with great, great respect, one of my questions is how
39:12
Speaker 1: absolute is that in practice? Does that mean the Pope
39:14
Speaker 1: can be walking by somewhere and point at someone now
39:17
Speaker 1: say I don't like it, get it out?
39:19
Speaker 2: Or like he can can he? I'm sure he can.
39:23
Speaker 1: He's like he could be like a stand up comic
39:26
Speaker 1: when they're doing a show. He can just walk by
39:28
Speaker 1: and not likes someone and say get him out, get
39:30
Speaker 1: him out of here. Now get his Swiss and the
39:33
Speaker 1: Swiss autumn, Yeah, get the Swiss.
39:34
Speaker 2: And it's funny too because we well I've always thought
39:36
Speaker 2: of the Swiss as being you know, a gentle, neutral,
39:39
Speaker 2: milk chocolate loving people, but we as we know the
39:42
Speaker 2: history of like the Swiss Guard and Swiss soldiers very
39:48
Speaker 2: intense and brutal, you know, and really good at like
39:51
Speaker 2: living rough and you know oftentimes you know, dealing with
39:55
Speaker 2: very difficult climates and you know, kind of inventing eight knives.
40:01
Speaker 1: Yeah, they also they play a huge role. I'm more
40:05
Speaker 1: and more convinced we need to do an episode on
40:07
Speaker 1: the Swiss Guard. So another thing that fascist Italy does,
40:12
Speaker 1: which it may surprise us given what we know about fascism,
40:15
Speaker 1: They modernize a lot of the Vatican. They give them
40:20
Speaker 1: a train station, telephone and telegraph office, a post office,
40:24
Speaker 1: a radio station. They supply them with money and property
40:28
Speaker 1: in other parts of Rome to kind of compensate in
40:31
Speaker 1: their negotiations. And weirdly enough, despite all this, during World
40:37
Speaker 1: War Two, the Vatican officially stays neutral.
40:42
Speaker 2: And both the Allied and Axis forces exercise some restraints.
40:48
Speaker 2: And you have to argue, I think that reverence for religion,
40:54
Speaker 2: you know, and the sanctity of Vatican City plays into
40:59
Speaker 2: that much more than any kind of strategic planning.
41:02
Speaker 1: Yeah, no army in the Western world wants to be
41:06
Speaker 1: the people responsible for bombing the pope. That's a hard one.
41:10
Speaker 2: To walk back backs. That's a straight ticket to h
41:13
Speaker 2: double hockey stacks, right, it probably is.
41:15
Speaker 1: I think it's just implied. There's so reverence about this.
41:20
Speaker 1: This centrality is taken so seriously that when the British
41:25
Speaker 1: Air Force drops pamphlets over Rome and some of them
41:31
Speaker 1: land in the bounds of the Vatican, the pontiff gets
41:34
Speaker 1: super angry. And even when the US enters the war,
41:39
Speaker 1: they oppose bombing Rome, and they exempt Catholic pilots and
41:46
Speaker 1: crew from any air raids on Rome or other property
41:50
Speaker 1: held by the Church unless they actively assertively said as
41:55
Speaker 1: a Catholic, I'm cool with it.
41:57
Speaker 2: It just speaks to the power of faith, you know,
41:59
Speaker 2: and can transcend and how that you know. Just again,
42:03
Speaker 2: the Roman Catholic Church has such a foothold in Europe,
42:08
Speaker 2: you know, and you know throughout the world in many ways,
42:12
Speaker 2: but especially in Europe that even if you were like
42:14
Speaker 2: a member of like the Church of England or something
42:16
Speaker 2: like that, you still respected the papacy, you know, it
42:20
Speaker 2: was something that you would dare not interfere with.
42:23
Speaker 1: And during the war, by the way, Pious the twelfth
42:27
Speaker 1: didn't create any new cardinals, so they had a backlog
42:31
Speaker 1: they have positions to fill. In nineteen forty six he
42:33
Speaker 1: creates thirty two cardinals to fill all these vacant openings.
42:38
Speaker 1: The funt difficult military corps except for the Swiss Guard,
42:42
Speaker 1: gets disbanded. In nineteen seventy the gendame rays right, Yeah, okay,
42:49
Speaker 1: they become civilian police.
42:51
Speaker 2: I'm gonna say gendermere Yeah.
42:53
Speaker 1: And nineteen eighty four, again very recent, the Holy See
42:57
Speaker 1: in Italy modify parts of their earlier t but the
43:01
Speaker 1: sovereignty sticks. And that is why you can visit the
43:06
Speaker 1: Vatican today and you will be visiting a sovereign foreign country.
43:12
Speaker 1: We didn't even talk about the size of the Vatican yet.
43:14
Speaker 2: Yeah, what are we talking here, Ben, It's again we're
43:19
Speaker 2: talking about micronations, So it's got to be small, yeah,
43:22
Speaker 2: sort of part of the criteria of this whole ongoing series. Yeah, yeah, exactly.
43:27
Speaker 1: It get this zero point one point nine square miles.
43:31
Speaker 2: Wow, only around one hundred and nine acres within yeah, exactly,
43:36
Speaker 2: a roughly two mile square mile border, one hundred and
43:40
Speaker 2: sixty acres of holdings, land holdings elsewhere. But most importantly,
43:46
Speaker 2: it represents the spiritual home. Yeah, I mean, if not
43:49
Speaker 2: physical to roughly one point two billion Catholics around the world.
43:56
Speaker 2: One point two billion.
43:57
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly that, and I guess what we should should
44:01
Speaker 1: point that out too quick? Correction, it's it covers one
44:05
Speaker 1: hundred and nine acres. You will see the estimates say
44:08
Speaker 1: that it's zero point one nine square miles, but it's
44:12
Speaker 1: got a two mile border.
44:14
Speaker 2: Oh excuse me, correct, I was thinking one point nine Yeah.
44:17
Speaker 2: There's two different no, two different things. And yeah, only
44:21
Speaker 2: around a thousand people actually live there. Remains an absolute
44:25
Speaker 2: monarchy essentially. You know, we can about being with an
44:28
Speaker 2: executive you know, someone in control of both the executive, judicial,
44:32
Speaker 2: and legislative branches of government. That's an absolute monarchy and
44:36
Speaker 2: an incredibly you know, potent historical site and continued uh
44:40
Speaker 2: site for pilgrimages from people from around the world that
44:44
Speaker 2: want to come and hang with the pope. And you know,
44:47
Speaker 2: see what's the thing too, when they elect a new
44:50
Speaker 2: pope the white smoke, yes, yeah, yeah, yeah, the conflict
44:53
Speaker 2: that's yeah, I kind of like a king's moot, you know, situation, Yeah,
44:58
Speaker 2: it is. And the negotia ciations are fraught with political
45:02
Speaker 2: intrigue within the Vatican, stuff that we not even non Catholics,
45:08
Speaker 2: but non clergy members wouldn't understand the intrigue. And I
45:11
Speaker 2: think we did an episode on stuff they don't want
45:13
Speaker 2: you to know about secret museums and this idea that
45:16
Speaker 2: there is some sort of secret cache of artifacts housed
45:21
Speaker 2: within the Vatican that you don't get to see, no
45:24
Speaker 2: know about. Now. By you, I mean all of you
45:27
Speaker 2: and the royal you.
45:28
Speaker 1: Unless the cardinals and the Pope are listening now, But
45:32
Speaker 1: I assume you guys are busy.
45:33
Speaker 2: Because think about the history, man, I mean, like all
45:35
Speaker 2: of that, that time when Vatican City started to really
45:39
Speaker 2: be on the rise because of all of these faithful
45:42
Speaker 2: people of great power and influence just giving them stuff,
45:46
Speaker 2: you know, gifting them lands.
45:48
Speaker 1: All that stuff like exists somewhere there. Yeah, it has
45:52
Speaker 1: to go somewhere. Things don't simply cease to be. It
45:56
Speaker 1: is still continually fascinating. This is the world's smallest state.
46:02
Speaker 1: It's nuts how much younger it is than a lot
46:05
Speaker 1: of people assume.
46:06
Speaker 2: And I would love to visit. I don't know, what
46:10
Speaker 2: do you think, smallest state's largest church? Yeah, it's almost
46:15
Speaker 2: like the whole me think about it. The whole city
46:17
Speaker 2: was built around a church, so it totally makes sense
46:21
Speaker 2: not to mention that it is this like spiritual you know,
46:24
Speaker 2: seat for billion, this you know, over a billion people.
46:27
Speaker 2: It's pretty fascinating.
46:28
Speaker 1: We get asks Max, so nol you're in Max, would
46:32
Speaker 1: you go with us to the Vatican if it meant
46:34
Speaker 1: if you didn't have to climb the dome shimming, get
46:37
Speaker 1: in a balloon?
46:37
Speaker 2: Oh?
46:37
Speaker 3: Absolutely. The Vatican is just you know, I don't know,
46:41
Speaker 3: it's it's it's the Vatican. It's one of the most
46:44
Speaker 3: famous places on the earth. Also in agreement, I thought
46:46
Speaker 3: this place is much older as a country than it
46:48
Speaker 3: actually is.
46:49
Speaker 2: But yeah, I mean, this is like serious history. It's
46:52
Speaker 2: just something that we have grown up knowing, and I think,
46:56
Speaker 2: you know, sometimes individuals feeling like the main character in
47:00
Speaker 2: their own story, we just kind of assume that the
47:02
Speaker 2: things that we've always known have always been true since forever.
47:05
Speaker 2: That's sort of the point of history, studying history, and
47:07
Speaker 2: hopefully this podcast is to help sort of correct some
47:10
Speaker 2: of those misconceptions as best we can.
47:12
Speaker 1: Yeah, and we also didn't even talk about the fact
47:15
Speaker 1: that Vatican City has restaurants. Oh I'm sure they're delightful. Yeah,
47:19
Speaker 1: I just didn't eat lunch yet so.
47:21
Speaker 2: That either, I'm sure you could get a really nice
47:23
Speaker 2: catcho to pipe.
47:25
Speaker 3: Are they like good restaurants? Are they're like really cheesy
47:28
Speaker 3: tourist trap restaurants?
47:29
Speaker 2: Oh, there has to be some good ones. I'm sure
47:32
Speaker 2: there have one hundred percent. They probably have a food
47:35
Speaker 2: court in Saint Peter's Basilica. I imagine I'm.
47:38
Speaker 3: Thinking of one of those really themed up like uh,
47:42
Speaker 3: gift shop inside the restaurant, because you know, when we go, guys,
47:45
Speaker 3: we gotta go fifty to fifty on that. We had
47:47
Speaker 3: to do the most touristy one, the most legitimate.
47:50
Speaker 2: Yeah. I also put forth that we pool our resources
47:55
Speaker 2: and start a restaurant in Vatican City called Body of Christ.
48:00
Speaker 2: We only served wine and wine, yeah, with for dipping.
48:04
Speaker 1: I'm certain this is one of the best ideas we've
48:08
Speaker 1: ever had, and the Pope is gonna love it. He's
48:11
Speaker 1: gonna be like, shut you know, all we have to
48:13
Speaker 1: do is come to the ribbon cutting. It's an absolute monarchy,
48:16
Speaker 1: which means all we have to do is get one
48:18
Speaker 1: guy on our side, one guy if we can convince him,
48:21
Speaker 1: if we can pitch the Pope on Body of Christ,
48:23
Speaker 1: the pop up restaurant or permanent pope up restaurant.
48:27
Speaker 2: Cool. It's needed really, like, way more progressive in the
48:30
Speaker 2: last couple of months. Bro, We're about to see Yeah,
48:33
Speaker 2: all right, holy see, Holy see, you're killing it. We're done.
48:37
Speaker 1: So thank you of course to UH Research Socio Jeff Bartlett.
48:41
Speaker 1: Thank you, of course to the one and only mister
48:44
Speaker 1: Max Williams, who elsh.
48:48
Speaker 2: Long may he reign as Pope of our hearts, of
48:51
Speaker 2: the nero of our podcast That's fair. I was trying
48:54
Speaker 2: to be nice this time, but he took it to
48:56
Speaker 2: the right place, man. I like where your head's at,
48:58
Speaker 2: like the cut of your gym Alex Williams to compose
49:00
Speaker 2: our theme. Christ vraciotis here in spirit and you Ben
49:05
Speaker 2: the Pope of my heart and also with you. Thank
49:08
Speaker 2: you go in peace. We'll see you next time. Folks.
49:19
Speaker 2: For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
49:23
Speaker 2: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.